64 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A decent start, but lacking, June 22, 2005
This review is from: Teach Yourself Irish Complete Course, CD package (Paperback)
I used this system as my second attempt to teach myself Irish, but like the previous course I followed, this one failed me. There are lots of exercises and cute culture notes in each chapter, and the vocabularies are decent. However, this book lacks thorough grammar explanations. Once I got into the 6th lesson, I was having questions about different usages that the book simply didn't answer. It tended to brush over most grammar points to teach you the absolute basics.
This book is good for a tourist who wants to spend a few days in an Irish speaking area, but is terrible for the serious student.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not a Serious Text, August 29, 2006
This review is from: Teach Yourself Irish Complete Course, CD package (Paperback)
If I was planning a short vacation in the Gaeltacht and made a decision to use Irish as much as possible, this text may have sufficed. Peculiarly, in some ways it seems to treat Irish as one might treat Chinese, Russian or Italian. One has to have a very specific interest in Gaeilge in order to want to use it in Ireland, as there are effectively no monoglots, and this book does not lay out how its students ought to utilize the text in order to embrace the Irish language in the unusual state it is in.
One of the things I cannot get past is the pronunciation guide. Unthorough and confusing, I found myself continually frustrated at not knowing how to pronounce the words as I continued with the lessons, even though I went through the pronunciation guide (with the CDs!) three or four times.
Next, how does one treat the chapters? Memorize each dialogue? And there is integrated grammar, but it is presented then forgotten in the exercises. Simple grammar features had me baffled, which I felt should have been explained. I am not a linguist, but I certainly understand language structure and terminology, so why do I still find Irish as illusive and vexing as ever?
I give it two stars because it could be useful if you are visiting a Gaeltacht and want to have a stock of memorized phrases at your disposal. Or maybe it is just not suited toward how I learn a language. I have tried to milk everything I could out of it, and I even bought "Teach Yourself Irish Grammar" as a supplement. Hopefully I will have more luck with "Learning Irish." I am not giving up though. The Irish language is truly worth all the headaches it gives. Rath Dé oraibh.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too Confusing, Too Fast, July 17, 2006
This review is from: Teach Yourself Irish Complete Course, CD package (Paperback)
Perhaps I just learn differently, but for me, this set does not work. For one thing, the c.d. has people shouting off Irish words in such quick succession that there is no time to repeat what they are saying. I suppose this cd could be useful if a person played it while they slept, but it is not a good program for those who learn languages by repetition.
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